One of America’s most dangerous cities, Juan Madrid takes us through a photographic tour of Flint, Michigan

Published on 07 October 2016

Flint is the largest city in Genesee County, Michigan and it gets a lot of bad press. With a violent crime rate seven times higher than the national average, it it consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. From 2011 – 2015 it was in a state of financial emergency, compounded with a public health crisis due to unsafe drinking water, the ongoing calamity has procured very little for its industry, tourism and the hopes of its denizens.

Juan Madrid’s series Waiting On A Dream takes a pensive look at the city. Madrid has captured a beautiful window into the ebb and flow of Flint’s everyday outgoings; it’s lost souls and new born puppies, it’s blood on the floor and open button Hawaiian shirts.We asked Juan about his intentions going in to photograph Flint and who else he thinks is photographing United States in ways that challenges that tired old trope of the “American road trip”.

Hello Juan, what’s your story and what kind of photos do you like to take?

I was born and raised in Catskill, NY and went to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to study photography. Growing up in Catskill had a massive influence on what I like to photograph – place is central to a lot of my photographic explorations, with other explorations growing out of that. At the end of it all, I try to make photos that show the strangeness and beauty of wherever and however I happen to be at any given time.

Why did you decide to create a series based in Flint, MI ?

One of my photojournalist friends from RIT, Brett Carlsen, was interning at The Flint Journal and invited me to come visit the city the summer before I returned to Rochester for my final year of study. I’d almost never been outside the state of New York at that point, so I jumped at the chance to spend a week there and try to get back into photographing after a summer of working two labor jobs. We came up with the idea of producing a collaborative newsprint from the photos we made from multiple visits and stays over the next year or so – available for purchase here, half the proceeds go to Flint based charities.

The city and its inhabitants were warm and friendly, and I think that helped to keep me coming back. I felt a pull from the city, partially because it had a similar atmosphere to Rochester. I stayed on a friend’s couch for a month after graduating in May 2013, mostly because I knew I would not have the time (or money) to do that again, and because Flint and Rochester shared many characteristics. I briefly semi-seriously considered moving to Flint, but the job prospects were not great and I don’t think I realized how much I missed Catskill at the time.

Did you get to speak with your subjects and hear about the problems current facing the residents?

I actually had not heard of the water problems while I was there – I spent about 3 months total in Flint, between 2013 and 2014. This was well before it became public knowledge. However, I did hear about other issues; most of them systemic, primarily dealing with classism and racism, and the effects of those issues, including poverty and it’s own offshoots (violence, drugs, prostitution, etc.).

Who else do you think has captured parts of America in a way that you found to be interesting?

I think an easier way to answer this is that it’s becoming a lot more uninteresting to see the white male gaze that still dominates the photographic world. The whole idea of the photographic road trip in the United States (not America, there are two other countries making up North America and an entire South America) is one of privilege, and it often seems like the people photographing in that mode are just making the same photos as everyone else and saying the same thing over and over, that have been said for too long.

There are a few photographers currently that I think keep things exciting – Suzanna Zak’s photographs and books/zines are absolutely lovely. Alejandro Cartagena’s book Santa Barbara Return Jobs To US captures the United States in a way that I don’t think an American photographer would be able to, and is one of the most intelligently put together books I’ve seen recently. The work is unsettling in a way that makes it difficult to imagine living in the place depicted. Stefanie Moshammer’s Vegas and Sheis a book that took me by surprise, but was one of my favorites this year. Nydia Blas unapologetically makes photographs that give a voice and power to black and brown girls and women, while also helping to break down the white gaze. Her use of magical realism helps dismantle the aesthetic cage that American photography currently resides in, and her work (much like Alejandro’s) implicates the viewer in a way that all powerful photography should.